6TH UPDATE, 3:42 PM: The San Andreasopening weekend B.O. quake finally has stopped shaking, and here’s how the film stands: $54.59M final three-day. B.O. industry naysayers last week were predicting $30M. Warner Bros always knew it would be higher for the New Line pic.

Warner Bros’ whirlwind frame of San Andreas, Mad Max: Fury Road ($14.1M) and American Sniper crossing $350M has catapulted the Burbank studio to the top of 2015’s studio marketshare (January 1-May 31) with $852.3M, per Rentrak Theatrical. Disney sits in second ($845.7M) for the year, followed by Universal ($810.3M), 20th Century Fox ($622.5M) and Paramount ($276.6M).

Dwayne Johnson hasn’t stopped working social media on the film, tweeting out throughout today how San Andreas is his biggest opener among his solo outings. The Brad Peyton-helmed film, a co-prod with Village Roadshow, also owned the weekend’s highest per-screen at $14,453, followed by $8,431 for Radius’ Heaven Knows What, Joshua and Ben Safdie’s movie about a heroin addict who finds mad love in the streets of New York. Anne Fontaine’s dramedy Gemma Bovery, about a couple who moves into a Norman village (it just so happens that they have and behave just like the characters in the Gustave Flaubert novel Madame Bovary), also charted a high PTA with $6,365 in its first weekend. Music Box is distributing.RelatedDwayne Johnson Circling ‘Big Trouble In Little China’ Redo For Fox

Total ticket sales for the weekend came in at $138.7M, 17% off from the same frame a year ago, which grossed $166.4M. That’s when Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent bowed. Despite the second off-weekend for the summer, the season is clocking in at $1.075B to date (May 1-31) per Rentrak, up 6% over 2014, which was a dog of a summer. 2013 posted the record summer of all time with $4.75B, per Rentrak. Currently, 2015 is pacing behind 2013 at 13%. This weekend brings two R-rated comedies, Entourage and Spy, and PG-13 horror pic Insidious Chapter 3. Warner Bros. Entourage unspools Wednesday in an estimated 3,100 theaters. Focus Features’ Insidious Chapter 3 will bow in 3,000. 20th Century Fox’s Spy is expected to be the strong of the three for FSS in an estimated 3,000 venues.

Top 20 box office actuals for the weekend of May 29-31, 2015 from Rentrak Theatrical:

5TH UPDATE, 8:35 AM: Warner Bros./New Line-Village Roadshow’s San Andreas just keeps shaking more bucks out of the multiplex into studio coffers. Per early morning estimates, the Brad Peyton-directed disaster pic is registering a higher opening weekend of $54.6M — 3% better than what Warner Bros. reported yesterday AM. The studio is now seeing Sunday at close to $16M vs. the $14.4M they originally projected. San Andreas made $18.2M on Friday (with $3.1M Thursday previews) and $20.5M on Saturday. Weekend actuals will come in later this afternoon.

4TH UPDATE, SUNDAY, 9:05 AM (after SUNDAY, 7:24 AM): Warner Bros. is reporting $53.2M for San Andreas‘ opening weekend at 3,777 locations. The New Line/Village Roadshow co-production drew mostly females at 51%. Under 25ers who turned up at 30% gave it an A- CinemaScore. Over 25ers who repped 70% of the crowd gave it the same grade. 3D repped 44% of the B.O at 3,200 locales. The older demo of 35-49 gave the Brad Peyton-directed film an A. San Andreas’ Saturday is in line with what we were seeing last night — a 13% spike over Friday with $20.6M. A majority of those shelling out for San Andreas showed up for The Rock at 38%, while 34% came out because they adore disaster films.

It’s a great morning overall for Warner Bros. In addition to San Andreas’ super weekend,American Sniper finally crossed the $350M mark at the box office catapulting the Burbank, CA studio to the top of domestic B.O. marketshare for 2015 with approximately $872.4M.

Beaming, Warner Bros. distribution chief Dan Fellman exclaimed, “Dwayne Johnson is a major movie star and he’s really coming into his own at the moment and we just happen to have him at the right time. San Andreas is his biggest opening as a solo star, and the film is from original material.”

Fellman also explained why the disaster pic is a tried-and-true genre at the box office. Auds never get tired of it, going back to 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure ($84.56M).

“As long as they’re not scheduled back to back”, said Fellman about where the genre lands on the calendar, “What also gets tiring is when you start to do sequels of the same thing. It needs to be fresh, and you have to have the right chemistry in the cast.” San Andreas reps the third time that the Rock has worked with actress Carla Gugino after Faster and Race to Witch Mountain.

Even more amazing about San Andreas this weekend: west coast crowds enjoyed watching themselves being decimated onscreen. Nineteen of the top 20 grossing theaters were in either San Francisco or Los Angeles. Warner Bros. observes that it over-indexed in these venues by 6%. Premium large format theaters which numbered 390 grossed $5.3M or 10% of the weekend gross. Cinemark XD led the way with 31% of the non-Imax total. RealD 3D hubs racked up $19.1M.

Total ticket sales for all films are clocking in at $134M, which is 20% off last year’s post-Memorial Day frame of $166.4M (we were expecting this). Two sluggish weekends hasn’t killed 2015’s pace ($4.3B) which is still ahead of 2014 by 3.4% according to Rentrak.

Worldwide, Pitch Perfect 2 continues to raise the roof crossing $200M. The chick singing pic stayed bratty in its third frame with $14.8M (-52%), swatting away Tomorrowland from second place. Disney’s George Clooney amusement theme park feature adaptation spiked 62% on Saturday over Friday thanks to matinees. Pic will fall less than 60% in its second weekend with $13.8M and a 10-day running cume of $63.2M.

Sony is seeing its Cameron Crowe pic Aloha flying in at $10M for the weekend in sixth place. That’s at the high end of what they were expecting. Some industry estimates think that by tomorrow morning, it could be lower at $9.5M. The Bradley Cooper-Emma Stone-Rachel McAdams romantic comedy rallied with women who turned up at 64% and the above-30 crowd at 57%. Sony wisely points out that this is a typical opening for a Crowe pic (he’s done much less during his first weekends, We Bought a Zoo bowed to $9.4M). However, as I mentioned before, the snarky film review headlines are gonna hurt this film more than the sour box office ones. It’s an auteur film geared toward adults, and these pics live and die on critics’ black ink. Film critics found Aloha a bit more tolerable to sit through at 17% Rotten versus Reese Witherspoon’s Hot Pursuit at 7%. Some reviewers like Deadline’s Pete Hammond did enjoy the film, and it’s that type of positive WOM which Sony is banking on, particularly with a B+ CinemaScore from adults 24-34. Throughout all the dramatic mishegoss in the film, there are apparently some scenes which Crowe fans can hang their hats on. Risk was spread around on the film with New Regency, LStar Capital and RatPac pitching in for the $37M cost. Fox has foreign given the New Regency connection.

Again, as I mentioned previously, the studio did right with this film. There aren’t any other romantic comedies in the summer marketplace, so this weekend was a prime date to bow. They knew femmes would gravitate toward Aloha and landed Emma Stone on the cover of Interview, and Rachel McAdams on the cover of Marie Claire. Other key print hits included Esquire.com, EW.com, Glamour, InStyle, Malibu, Penthouse, People, and US Weekly. The Aloha trailer kicked off on 50 Shades of Grey with a healthy media buy targeting women. If people don’t go to Aloha, it’s simply because they don’t like the movie; cult director and movie stars aside.

Last weekend’s opener Poltergeist from 20th Century Fox/MGM fell 66% as is the norm with fright fare. 10-day cume is at $38.3M.

3RD UPDATE, Sunday 12:17 AM: It’s a great weekend to have an earthquake. Warner Bros-New Line/Village Roadshow’s San Andreas continued to spike on the B.O. Richter scale, showing an uptick Saturday of 14% with an estimated $20.75M over Friday’s $18.2M. Per industry calculations, San Andreas is now looking at a weekend of $53M-$55M; still the best solo bow for leading man Dwayne Johnson. Eighty-five percent of the pic’s 3,777 engagements are in 3D — and if you’re gonna indulge in watching the Los Angeles skyline melt, it’s gotta be jumping off the screen.

Many expect the total ticket sales this weekend to be behind last year’s post-Memorial Day frame of $166.5M when Disney’s Maleficent bowed to $69.4M. Despite last weekend’s weak Memorial Day frame, summer 2015 (May 1-28) with $935M is pacing ahead of summer 2014 by 6%, but behind 2013 by 13% per Rentrak Theatrical. At this point in time in 2013, summer had already eclipsed the $1B mark.

Universal’s Pitch Perfect 2 is still expected to slot second with $14.5M-$14.9M in its third weekend, while Walt Disney’s Tomorrowland should land third with $13.9M-$14.45M in its second frame. This is despite the fact that Tomorrowland benefited from family matinee business Saturday with an estimated $6.275M, a 66% rise over Friday’s $3.77M. PP2 rose 33% on Saturday with $6.075M over Friday’s $4.56M. Total cume for PP2 by end of this weekend will be between $147.2M-$147.5M. Tomorrowland will be between $63.3M-$63.8M.

Warner Bros.’ Mad Max: Fury Road is looking at a third weekend of $13.8M per industry estimates. Saturday was up 53% over Friday with $5.9M. Total cume by EOD on Sunday should be at $116.1M.

Further down the charts, Sony’s Cameron Crowe romantic comedy Aloha saw a bit of an uptick Saturday with an 8% rise over Friday ($3.9M to yesterday’s $3.6M). The $37M budgeted pic still looks to come in at $10M stateside for the weekend.

2ND UPDATE, SATURDAY 8:39 AM (after Friday, 11:20 PM): Warner Bros. is reporting $18.2M this morning for the first Friday of San Andreas, making itthe highest opening day for a Dwayne Johnson solo project on the B.O. Richter scale. The Brad Peyton-helmed pic is on a course to quake the action star’s previous opening weekend records outside his thespian duties on the Fast & Furious franchise with an estimated $46.5M $47.7M per industry calculations. Last night, the town was seeing an opening day for San Andreas of $17.5M.

Friday’s B.O. for San Andreas bests the first days and weekends of previous Rock hits, The Scorpion King ($12.6M Friday/$36.1M FSS), Hercules ($11.05M/$29.8M FSS) and even franchise sequel G.I. Joe Retaliation ($15.3M Friday/$40.5M FSS) which is really an ensemble title for the action star, but the pic is just sitting there in his B.O. rankings as a border between his solo outings and Fast & Furious work. The B.O. forecast for San Andreas this summer: Completely sunny without any falling rocks crushing its legs thanks to an A- CinemaScore.

Yes, we’ve seen bigger openings for the disaster genre, for example Roland Emmerich’s 2012 ($65.2M opening), but San Andreas is also higher than New Line’s angry mother nature August release Into the Storm which bowed to $17.3M stateside and ended its domestic run at $47.6m (which is essentially the opening weekend of San Andreas).

There’s no question about it: Johnson knows the responsibilities that come with mega movie stardom, meaning he frequently promotes his films to his 72.8M social media followers. Wherever he goes, they go. Johnson takes his tweeting and Instagram-ing as seriously as a twice-a-day physical workout. The Rock was so dedicated to tubthumping San Andreas, he took two weeks off from shooting his film Central Intelligence opposite Kevin Hart to participate in a worldwide tour. Warner Bros. knew The Rock could send out positive shockwavesand worked with him accordingly in spreading the word on San Andreas. Johnson debuted exclusive videos from the film on his social handles. Castmembers Carla Gugino and Alexandra Daddario were right there with him, supporting a trailer debut stunt on Twitter, an official site launch on Tumblr, in addition to prolific placements on Snapchat and Instagram in an effort to hook younger audiences.

In keeping with the epic nature of San Andreas, all related public events were stunted for maximum effect, including a Hollywood premiere complete with an arrival assisted by local Search and Rescue. There was also a stunted trailer reveal on Jimmy Kimmel Live, an integration on the NCAA Final Four pre-game, and a show-stopping moment on the MTV Movie Awards that included a branded set transformation for the final award of the night.

Risk was mitigated in regards to the production cost of San Andreas with Village Roadshow co-financing the $110M pic and Rat Pac covering a minority share of the budget per their deal with Warner Bros. That cost is a typical summer tentpole spend, but it’s cheaper than such disaster pics as Sony’s 2012 ($200M production cost, $166.1M domestic B.O.) and 20th Century Fox’s The Day After Tomorrow (which cost $125M and finaled its domestic B.O. at $186.7M).My breakdown on the monsoon that’s hitting Aloha is below this giant photo:

Between last night’s figures and this morning, there’s a shell game going on with Uni’s Pitch Pefect 2, Disney’sTomorrowland and Warner Bros.’ Mad Max: Fury Road in regards to spots 2, 3 and 4. All three of them are pushing Sony’s Aloha into what looks to be a sixth-place opening of $10M, which is at the higher end of Sony’s projection. The romantic comedy’s Friday is coming in at $3.6M. PP2 is looking to land in second as of Saturday AM with an estimated $14.1M for its third weekend following a $4.56M Friday. Tomorrowland is now looking at a second weekend of $13.3M which reps a 60% decline. Many figured it would decline between 50-60% this weekend. Disney is reporting a second Friday of $3.77M. By Sunday, the pic’s running cume is expected to track ahead of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (final domestic B.O. $90.8M)during its second weekend by 2%. While the comps between the two films are different — Tomorrowland is PG and Prince of Persia is PG-13 — it’s worth the juxtaposition because that 2010 film was the last Disney Memorial Day bomb. The one glimmer of hope that Tomorrowland has in the coming weeks is that it’s the only family choice on the marquee. Warner Bros.’ Mad Max: Fury Road keeps trucking with a projected $13.05M third frame. Its third Friday was better than expected for the George Miller film with $3.87M (as opposed to $3.4M). Last weekend’s second opener, 20th Century Fox’s Poltergeist from Fox 2000/MGM, posted a $2.575M Friday raising its eight-day total to $33M. As of Saturday AM, the horror reboot is looking at an estimated 66% drop in its second weekend for $7.67M and a 10-day total of $38.1M.

Which brings us to Cameron Crowe’s Aloha from Sony…

Word is around this pig roast that it cost $37M to make, which isn’t a volcanic disaster next to what it’s expected to pull in this weekend. New Regency partnered with Sony on Aloha which is why 20th Century Fox has foreign (pic hits Australia next weekend, Brazil the following weekend, and Europe later in the summer). LStar Capital and RatPac also threw cash in.

Then why is everybody acting like this film was hit by a tidal wave? You can’t blame the cast: between Bradley Cooper, Bill Murray, Emma Stone and Rachel McAdams, Crowe has enough stars to sell out the Hollywood Bowl every night this summer. You can’t blame distribution: a summer release date for a star-filled romantic comedy of this caliber is prime time, and there’s currently nothing like it in the marketplace. Marketing? Yes and No, but that’s arguably not the culprit here. RelishMix observed that fans were slow to engage the film’s Facebook and Twitter pages with respective counts of 41K and 1,724. Furthermore, most of the cast were sitting in the social wings in terms of developing social fan pages. Cooper’s FB page has 5.8M waiting and there aren’t any current posts. That said, tracking for Aloha did pick up in total awareness moving from 42% to 62% between May 6 and today (which means some marketing did work). But first choice remained static, moving from 3% to 4% over the same period.

The biggest obstacle for Aloha is itself. This is a piece of cinema from a beloved, critically acclaimed auteur — a guy whose films such as Jerry Maguire were part of the cultural zeitgeist or, like Almost Famous, were nostalgic pieces of genius — who is just at a low in his filmmaking cycle. Sony has hopes that this film could leg it out like We Bought a Zoo ($9.4M opening/$75.6M domestic B.O.).However, Crowe’s previous PG outing earned an A CinemaScore and was slightly hugged by critics with a 66% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score. Aloha is different. It has a B- CinemaScore (which means its opening will yield a 2.7 multiple in its final stateside tally) and the critics have just been losing their hair over it with an 18% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Sony cites a B+ CinemaScore for the pic’s 25-54 demo and it’s questionable whether that will make any difference down the road.

Quite often I’ll exclaim that certain genres, i.e. big studio comedies and tentpoles, are critic proof. That’s not the case with Aloha. It is an adult-driven film from an auteur, and thus reviews are crucial when it comes to foot traffic. Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal aptly titled his review: “Aloha Review: Hello or Goodbye?” The New York Times’ A.O. Scott, a fervent Crowe fan, began his review with “Let me say upfront I will always root for Cameron Crowe” before seguing to “The plot is a hash when it’s not a drag, and the 100-odd-minute cut of the film…seems hacked from something longer and baggier.” Variety really punched Aloha in the solar plexus. The SEO for their review is “Aloha: Cameron Crowe’s Worst Film Yet”. Critic Andrew Barker barked “Unbalanced, unwieldy, and at times nearly unintelligible… Paced like a record on the wrong speed, or a Nancy Meyers movie recut by an over-caffeinated Jean-Luc Godard.”

In all fairness to Crowe, he doesn’t have the B.O. hit reputation that Meyers does with her mass-appealing dramedies. His top two $100M-plus grossing films starred Tom Cruise, and the film he won an Oscar screenplay for, Almost Famous, grossed only $32.5M. However, any shortage of dollars on that 2000 release was made up a hundred-fold by the critical acclaim that film received (it has an 88% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score). Not so with Aloha.

The top 10 pics at the B.O. per industry estimates courtesy of Deadline’s Amanda N’Duka as of Friday night @ 11:20PM:

UPDATE, FRIDAY 1:30 PM: Warner Bros.-New Line/Village Roadshow’s San Andreas is looking pretty sturdy. Early industry estimates show an estimated $15M Friday with an opening weekend of $39M-$41M. That’s right above the vicinity of Dwayne Johnson’s solo openers, i.e. TheScorpion King ($36.1M) and Hercules ($29.8M), and on par with the actor’s franchise sequel G.I. Joe: Retaliation ($40.5M). Fueling the friction on San Andreas‘ plates are 3,200 3D engagements out of its 3,777 total and Imax showtimes, which the Brad Peyton-helmed film is splitting with Walt Disney’s Tomorrowland.

Hercules posted a first Friday of $11.05M last July. Scorpion King which bowed 13 years ago in late April, minted $12.6M. According to tracking this morning, San Andreas was the most popular with men over 25 with a 91% total awareness and 16% first choice.

While Sony’s Aloha could take second tonight with an estimated $4.5M at 2,815 venues, it looks to wind up with a weekend of $12.3M which could put it fourth for the weekend behind Tomorrowland in second and Universal’s Pitch Perfect 2 in third. Aloha in tracking is hitting women over 25 at 71%, but with a low first choice for the demo at 6%.

The Warner Bros.-New Line/Village Roadshow title is hoping for a $40M launch for the Brad Peyton film, which marks the director’s second outing with star Dwayne Johnson after Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. San Andreas will be sending seismic shocks into 3,777 theaters today, 85% of which are in 3D. Titles in the Roland Emmerich canon, i.e. 2012 and The Day After Tomorrrow, are the high points with the disaster film at the B.O., repping the genre’s heyday. 2012 posted a first Friday of $23.4M before raking in a $65.2M weekend, while TDAT, a Memorial Day release, also earned a first Friday of $23.5M followed by a $68.7M FSS.

Per Fandango, San Andreas is far and away the weekend’s top ticket seller. San Andreas is outselling Johnson’s previous actioners Hercules and Journey 2 at the same point in the Fandango sales cycle. Thursday night’s ticket sales are, of course, rolled into Friday’s results.

On social, Dwayne Johnson, who is quite active, has a reach of 72.8M folks across Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. While the San Andreas Facebook page only has 526K followers according to RelishMix, the page’s videos are driving impressions very well with 65.2M Facebook total views and the top San Andreas trailer from March at 44M views. YouTube views are building well over the last week up to 29M with top daily views on the 70k per day range. Reposting is also strong at an earned, owned ration of 24 to 1.

Other good news for Warner Bros.: Their Mad Max: Fury Road crossed the $100M mark on Wednesday with its current cume at $102.3M.

While this weekend will obviously be down from the holiday frame a week ago, it is certain to be off from the $166.5M ticket sales that the frame rang up a year ago. That’s when Walt Disney’s Angelina Jolie Sleeping Beauty spinoff Maleficent worked its magic at the B.O. with a $69.4M opening.

Aloha is the second widest opener today in 2,815 venues. Crowe’s previous outing, the PG-rated We Bought a Zoo, was quite the Christmas sleeper in 2011 when it bowed to $9.4M and generated a crazy 8x multiple for a final domestic cume of $75.6M. While Aloha is expected to only make $8M-$10M this weekend, the hope is that the star-filled film (with Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone and Rachel McAdams) will stick around as counter-programming throughout the summer.